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" Hello, sweetie."
"Eeeeek!" You squealed, jumping in your seat, hands clapping, legs bouncing, and teeth biting your bottom lip. In the chair that you had dragged into Pen's computer lair, Spencer leaned forward with anticipation, his lips pursed tightly with thought, eyes completely focused on the largest monitor that your cousin owned while Peter Capaldi and Alex Kingston's characters issued their final hellos to each other.
You were so thrilled with the episode. It was turning out to be great! Tumblr would positively explode once it was done airing in America for the first time… next week. Until then, you'd have to struggle to keep your mouth shut.
The door behind you both opened. Light flooded in. You put your hands up and hissed. Spencer cringed and reached past you to pause the episode. "What are you crazy kids doing?" Morgan asked after looking around for his baby girl and not finding her with her computers.
With a subtle touch of a few buttons, you pulled up a traffic report in front of the browser opened to the latest Doctor Who. Spencer didn't get the memo. "We're using Garcia's computers to –"
You'd have elbowed at him if you were the kind of person who liked to touch people, but you and Spencer had some mild germophobia in common. Neither of you liked to touch people or things when you didn't know where they'd come from… and oftentimes, knowing where they were from didn't help too much, either. Your huge, dorky glasses – unnecessary, as you wore contacts – had the lenses popped out, but still made you look silly. They made your face seem slimmer and your E/C eyes bigger, and, most importantly, they were hella cute.
"We're protecting her computers while she's on a lunch run," you talked over Spencer, leaning back casually. You didn't want to give away that you were up to no good, after all. Pen would probably be sitting right there with you, but being an FBI employee, you liked to give her some plausible deniability. You, on the other hand, were not an agent, and therefore couldn't really be expected to know what did or did not constitute as misuse of FBI resources, could you? "Speaking of, Chocolate Thunder," Spencer grinned and hid his face. Morgan sent you a fishy stare as you sarcastically poked fun at your cousin's nicknames for him. You had accumulated a very long list. "Wanna go get her for us? There's a fact about the Louisiana traffic this week I think she'll be interested in."
By which you obviously meant that she would be right on the edge of her seat with you and Spencer if she got to see the Doctor being the one to say hello, sweetie for once and you already felt a little bit guilty about leaving her out.
In hindsight, that was really more of a Spencer-ish thing to say. Morgan narrowed his eyes at you. Notoriously easily bored, he wasn't buying that you of all people found something about a traffic report riveting.
"And what is it, then?" He asked, crossing his arms smugly and leaning against the doorway.
Spencer came to your rescue like a knight in shining armor – except for that his shining armor was actually his eidetic memory. "Less than two percent of road fatalities in 2010 were bicyclists, while pedestrians made up ten point four percent."
You made sure to brighten up in your seat, nod enthusiastically enough for your glasses to come dislodged, and look as excited as if you'd just won the Powerball lottery.
Morgan groaned loudly. "Nerds," he grumbled, turning around to leave. Your hand hovered over the keyboard to minimize the traffic stats and bring Doctor Who back up. Then, without warning, Morgan turned back around. "Hey, didn't Garcia put up a firewall to keep the computers password-protected from you?"
"He's onto us!" You shrieked, jumping up and bolting out of the room past Morgan, collecting your purse on the way.
You were kind of supposed to stop hacking into other peoples' computers after you were caught and given a pardon in return for helping your cousin, Penelope Garcia, track down the servers that a team of hitmen were using. The BAU team was pretty chill with having another skilled, MIT-trained computer hacker in their midst… but Morgan would probably tattle on you to Hotch.
You hated the cases, honestly. They were so messy and violent and disgusting. The photographs were bad, but then your friends were going out and seeing those things in person. You didn't know how they could tolerate it. Your hacking skills hadn't been utilized much in any official capacities since the hitmen, but you had been on point when Spencer took down Miss .45, and since then you'd been intermittently checking in with Hotch about Cat's sentencing status.
Spencer had become your best friend after Miss .45. You'd been dragged in by your wrists in handcuffs, only to have them unlocked and be given reign over the state-of-the-art computer systems that the FBI used. Garcia trusted you and they desperately needed more hands, so you were granted leeway and immunity as long as you used your talents for good instead of mischief and nonviolent evil. Miss .45 had been your first experience with any real bad guys, and you'd admired Spencer for his coolness in the face of such danger and cruelty from the psycho.
Then you'd bonded over a shared love for all things nerdy, gone to a convention together dressed up in full cosplay, and the rest was history. You had such a hopeless, shameless crush on him that some days you considered actually applying to the bureau instead of just being a confidential informant. How could it hurt to be on the cases? You'd spend more time together, you'd have an honest career, and you'd get to carry around your own shiny badge. That would be pretty awesome.
Of course, you could get more time with Spencer if you started going on some dates, but why the hell would you tell him you liked him? You were a hacker taken in under federal supervision, he was an FBI agent. It would've been like Aida and Radamѐs, and you did not feel like being buried alive by Amneris, whoever she would've been represented by in the comparison.
Now you just wished that you knew how to broach the subject. You were at his bedside in the hospital, and because you had been chosen to consult, you'd been tracing a phone call… which involved listening to the line, and hearing the gunshot, hearing the shout and then the takedown of the unsub… it was all going to be in your nightmares. He was still and pale, but you could watch his chest rise and fall.
"Has he woken up?" Pen asked, bustling back into the room, carrying her bag with her computer and a couple of take-out bags with dinner for the two of you. You didn't want to leave Spencer's side.
"Not yet," you said sadly, reaching out as if to touch his hand, but you hesitated, remembering when his own blood had been all over his palms and wrists from trying to stop the bleeding. Feeling sick, you dropped her arm into your lap and looked away. "But his vitals are good."
She sat down next to you, watching Spencer hopefully for any sign of stirring.
"I know you like him," she said to you quietly. "And he'll be okay. He's not going to… you know… before you tell him. You're good people, the world wouldn't take that opportunity from you both."
Spencer made a full recovery and six months later, you were back to the normal routines. Or, at least, as close to the normal routines as a profiler with odd hours and unpredictable trips could have. Valentine's Day was coming up, and since every store was carrying them anyway, you bought some bags of candy on sale and took it with you to Spencer's apartment, knocking on the door while your other hand was laden down with a plastic bag chock full of snacks.
He answered the door and grinned when he saw you. There was no hesitation between the curiosity and its transition to excitement. Your face warmed as he let you in to start your movie marathon. In a few minutes, his coffee table was covered in a buffet of junk to eat, coffee mugs for the both of you, and a TV remote to control the volume. You sat on opposite sides of the couch, though fifteen minutes into the first movie selection, Spencer picked up his legs and turned sideways on the couch, leaning against the arm of the sofa and stretching his feet toward you.
"Why are we watching romance movies instead of sci-fi?" You asked what had been bugging you ever since you'd made the plans.
Spencer looked up at you in surprise. "I thought this was what we were supposed to do," he said, voice confused and a little worried.
"Well… I mean, some people do, but I didn't think you liked Love, Actually."
"I've never actually seen it before," the genius admitted. Privately, you thought, lucky. Garcia had made you watch it with her every year. "But it seemed like the right thing for us to do." He shrugged and looked away, turning his head towards the TV again, crossing his arms self-consciously. "I might have to leave with the team for a case on Valentine's Day, so since today is pretty close, I thought we should go ahead and have our Valentine's Day date night tonight instead."
Date night?! You blushed red hot. "Date night?!" You said aloud without your brain-mouth filter. "We're dating?"
Spencer's face looked as rosy as yours had to, eyes widening comically. "I forgot to ask you," he whispered in shock, looking down at his lap in embarrassment.
The entire thing was just so hilarious that you reached for his ankle, gently touching his leg to assure him to stay and that he hadn't done anything wrong, all while you giggled madly. "Anything you'd like to ask me, Spence?" You asked sarcastically through your laughter.
Bright red, he stumbled through with his face down. The TV kept playing the chick flick in the background, but your attention was on your friend… possibly your new boyfriend. Who would've thought your cousin was wrong? You didn't need to do anything; Spencer was taking care of addressing your crush for you.
"Y/N, do you want to – I mean – I thought we spend a lot of time together anyway and – Morgan told me that on Valentine's Day, you're supposed to – um – will you go out with me?" He blurted, looking completely miserable at his lack of eloquence.
You kept giggling and nodding enthusiastically. "It would seem like I already am," you couldn't resist quipping.